Chapter 122
Third Party Point of View:
The moment Luca felt the surge of ancient magic ripple through the ley lines of the land, his eyes snapped open.
The wind howled around the shattered ruins he called his sanctuary, thick with shadows and death. Bones littered the ground, cracked and blackened from years of decay and forbidden rituals. The corrupted heart of the forest pulsed faintly beneath his feet–a sick, slow thrum of something long dead trying to come back to life.
He smiled, lips cracking and curling into something no longer human.
“So… it has begun,” he rasped, his voice a low, guttural whisper that made the shadows curl tighter around him.
His body–misshapen, stretched, and scorched by centuries of dark magic–shifted slightly, bones popping under unnatural strain. Tendrils of shadow coiled around his deformed fingers, pulsing with the same cursed rhythm that echoed through the land. His eyes glowed—a deep, burning red, not with heat but with rot, the color of ancient hate.
“The girl… she awakened.”
He stood, letting the veil of shadow slip over his form like a second skin. The ground beneath him shriveled, plants wilting
into ash beneath his steps. The air around him buzzed with death.
With a flick of a clawed hand, he summoned one of his remaining spies–an obsidian–eyed creature that had once been a
man. Now it slithered from the cracks of the ruin, hunched and broken.
“Tell the others,” Luca hissed. “I will go myself.”
Ellaine’s Point of View:
The world burned with sensation.
Heat. Cold. Light. Darkness. It pulsed and rippled across her skin like crashing waves. Her breath came in uneven gasps, sharp and shallow, as if the very air refused to stay inside her lungs. Magic surged violently inside her, as if something inside had finally torn free of its cage–and it wanted out.
The carriage had been left behind. Now, they were deep in the forest, on foot, surrounded by chaos.
She barely saw the battle, though she could hear it–Francesco’s low, commanding voice ordering warriors, Marlow’s urgent calls, Lira’s breathless incantations, Audrey’s focused, steady tone anchoring everyone around her.
But for Ellaine, it was all too loud.
“Too much…” she whispered, staggering a few steps away from the heart of the fight. Her arms trembled violently, glowin with veins of white–blue lightning, her fingertips buzzing with untamed energy.
Francesco turned, cleaving a rogue in half before sprinting toward her, panic breaking through his usual calm. “Ellaine! Stay behind me!”
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She looked up at him–his eyes filled with worry, devotion, love and her chest tightened painfully.
Why does my heart ache?
مادير
Why does something inside me want to protect him, even when I can’t remember why?
“I need to go,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ll hurt you…”
He reached out. “No, Ellaine, please-‘
But she stepped back.
And then-
A scream tore through the air.
Monica.
Ellaine’s gaze snapped toward the sound. A rogue wolf, massive and twisted by black magic, lunged through the trees straight toward the woman who had once cradled her through her worst nights.
“No!”
The scream wasn’t just a cry. It was a command. It was magic.
A dome of white–blue light exploded from her chest, like the release of a storm. The rogue wolf was hit mid–air, blasted backward into a tree with such force that bones cracked like thunder.
Monica collapsed to the ground, alive but trembling.
Audrey let out a sharp gasp. Marlow stopped, staring with wide eyes. Francesco cursed under his breath, sprinting toward her again.
But Ellaine didn’t stop.
Another rogue came from the side. She turned with a flick of her hand. A blast of air and magic sent it flying like a ragdoll. Then another. And another.
Her body was no longer just hers–it was a vessel of pure, ancient fury.
Magic screamed through her veins, singing in her blood, wrapping around her fingers like living flame. She raised her hands and let it all go.
The world erupted.
Waves of energy tore through the forest, incinerating anything they touched. Earth was ripped from its roots, trees groaned and cracked, rogue after rogue disintegrated under her wrath.
She was a storm.
And nothing could stop her.
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Francesco tried. “Ellaine! Enough! They’re gone! You’re safe!”
But she couldn’t hear him.
Not over the roar of her own magic.
The last of the rogues fell. Silence returned, heavy and absolute. Ash drifted through the air like snow. Ellaine stood in the middle of it all, chest heaving, glowing with a crimson light that pulsed like a second heart.
She turned to Francesco.
Her eyes once silver–were glowing blood red.
He froze.
“Luna Ellaine?” Audrey whispered, horrified.
“She’s losing herself,” Lira muttered, her voice shaking. “The magic is consuming her. She doesn’t remember who she is- her soul is adrift. If she turns on us-”
They didn’t finish.
Because suddenly, the air grew cold.
Too cold.
The shadows thickened. The ground pulsed.
And then… the rot came.
The smell of death and decay slithered in on the wind. The trees seemed to bow away from it. The warriors tensed, weapons raised.
A figure stepped from the woods.
Tall. Crooked. Drenched in darkness and bone.
His presence was suffocating. Like a curse made flesh.
Lira dropped her potion vial. Audrey took a defensive stance. Marlow whispered a curse.
Francesco’s voice cracked. “No… it can’t be
The creature stepped forward, pale as parchment, his bones jutting at strange angles under skin too thin to be alive. His eyes were pits of red fire. His grin–split far too wide–oozed delight.
“Luca,” someone whispered.
A death sentence.
“He’s dead,” one knight gasped.
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“The King killed him…”
Luca let out a soft, hollow laugh. “You really thought heartfire would end me? Oh, sweet children.
Francesco snarlow
claws unsheathing. “Stay away from her!”
But Luca ignored him entirely.
His eyes locked on Ellaine.
“My sweet girl,” he cooed, his voice soft and slick like poison. “You’ve finally awakened. You remember the pain now, don’t you? The betrayal?”
Ellaine tilted her head, confused. Her body hummed with power, unstable and flickering. Her eyes flashed red, then silver. Her breath quickened.
Francesco stepped closer. “Ellaine, it’s not real. He’s lying.”
Luca kept speaking, his voice like honey laced with venom. “They never told you the truth, did they? That man–he’s the reason you hurt. The reason you were broken. He wanted you for power.”
“No,” Francesco growled, “Don’t listen to him!”
But Ellaine stepped forward.
Just once.
Toward Luca.
“Ellaine!” Francesco shouted, reaching out.
She flinched.
It shattered him.
Luca smiled wider. “That’s right. Come to me, child. Let me take it all away. The pain. The fear. The confusion.”
The shadows wrapped tighter around him, and around her. The magic pulsing from Ellaine turned darker, redder, wilder.
The warriors couldn’t move. Couldn’t act.
The forest held its breath.
She stood between them–her past, her future, her pain.
And inside her, something began to crack.
A voice–Mika’s voice–echoed faintly: “Don’t forget who you are…”
But Ellaine couldn’t answer.
Because she no longer knew.
